Odin Returns

"What exactly happened, Odin?"

"Why are you…"

Asgard, royal bedchamber.

Supporting her husband, who had collapsed before the door, into the healing pool, Frigga removed Odin’s bloodstained clothes and personally cast healing magic, drawing upon the pool’s energy to mend his heart.

"I lost, Frigga."

"I lost."

Lying in the healing pool as magical energy washed over his heart again and again, Odin slowly regained consciousness. When he opened his eyes, he saw his wife drenched in sweat.

He let out a desolate sigh.

"You lost?"

"It’s fine. So what if you lost? It’s fine." The moment Frigga realized what Odin meant by losing, she immediately comforted her husband’s heart, which was filled with defeat.

To Frigga, the fact that Odin had returned alive from the hands of those true ancient Celestials was already an enormous surprise.

"You still have Asgard, you still have me, and you still have Hela."

Odin shook his head and said nothing more.

He stared blankly at the runes engraved across the palace ceiling.

The power he had always been proud of had been practically insignificant before that Celestial. Even the Destroyer Armor had been treated like a toy.

The pride in his heart, the glory of unifying the Nine Realms, had vanished completely the instant he was ravaged by that Celestial.

"Odin…?"

"Frigga, I want to be alone for a while. Is that all right?"

Odin closed his eyes and sank to the bottom of the healing pool before his wife could respond.

"…I understand."

Frigga, who had wanted to say something, paused. In the end, she swallowed her words of comfort.

As she left, she shut the bedchamber door behind her. But when she turned the corner, she saw a figure who utterly surprised her.

"Heimdall?"

Asgard’s gatekeeper, Odin’s loyal subordinate, and keeper of the Bifrost’s key—Heimdall.

"Heimdall?"

"Heimdall?"

"Wake up!"

The soul-targeting call roused Asgard’s gatekeeper from his slumber as he sat collapsed on the ground, and he slowly opened his eyes.

The missing horn on his helmet was enough to show what kind of beating he had suffered. At Heimdall’s feet lay a pile of scorched armor fragments—the Destroyer Armor.

"My queen."

Heimdall tried to bow, but his screaming nerves stopped him the next second.

"What happened to you, Heimdall?"

"Why are you… and the Destroyer Armor…"

Frigga’s doubts and worries over Odin only deepened.

Heimdall was incredibly powerful, so powerful that even she could not gauge the depths of his strength. Yet now, he lay outside the royal bedchamber in such a miserable state, with Odin’s proudest armor scattered at his feet.

"I’m fine."

"I was merely caught in the aftermath of the battle while receiving Odin. It’s nothing serious."

Enduring the pain coursing through his body, Heimdall slowly rose with his right hand braced against the palace wall. After straightening his helmet, he waved his left hand, and the Destroyer Armor parts scattered across the floor reassembled and flew before Frigga.

"My queen, I’ll have to trouble you to repair this armor."

With that, Heimdall turned and limped away.

He was Asgard’s gatekeeper. As long as he still lived, he had to stand watch for Asgard and for Odin.

"Caught in the aftermath… of the battle?"

For the first time, Frigga had seen such a dim expression on Heimdall’s face. She stared blankly at the Destroyer Armor before her.

Her right hand unconsciously touched the scorched bracer. In that instant, Frigga felt as though she had touched a bottomless cosmic black hole.

That inexplicable pull left her completely unable to resist!

What?!

"No!"

"Frigga!!!"

A weak roar came from within the bedchamber. In Heimdall’s horrified gaze as he turned around, Odin, bare-chested, smashed through the sealed doors and personally shattered the Destroyer Armor he had painstakingly created!

Clang!

The crisp sound of fragments hitting the ground jolted Frigga awake as she stumbled backward and fell.

"O… Odin…?"

Frigga turned around. Odin, who had just radiated a terrifying aura, collapsed directly into her arms. After leaving behind one sentence, he fainted once more.

"Seal Asgard. Now."

Andromeda Galaxy.

The Beckett, its prow engraved with the symbol B, sailed slowly through the magnificent expanse of space. The Other, who had just jumped out of Kree territory engulfed in a chain of explosions, still felt lingering fear as he respectfully accepted the scepter with the Mind Stone re-embedded in it.

"Your Highness Beckett, your hair…"

After venting with all his might following that brush with death, Beckett’s body finally began to show abnormalities.

Before The Other and Hela’s eyes, his waist-length golden hair continued shrinking until it returned to normal.

"Is it over this time?"

Once his hair returned to its usual black, a wave of weakness instantly swept through every nerve in Beckett’s body.

"Your Highness Beckett!"

The Other, who had barely had time to warm the Mind Scepter in his hands, took a step forward to support the His Highness Beckett he admired, only to discover that Hela, who had been bickering with Beckett moments ago, had already beaten him to it.

"You overdid it, didn’t you?"

"Serves you right!"

Hela draped Beckett’s arm over her shoulder to support him, then could not help mocking the man so close beside her.

He had recklessly drained the stone’s power without even considering whether his body could endure it.

Though she had enjoyed it just now too.

That thrill of adrenaline surging wildly,

That sensation intense enough to send pleasure shooting up her spine until her scalp went numb…

Hela unconsciously licked her slightly dry lips.

To be honest, she wanted more.

No one had ever taken her along to do something like this before.

What am I thinking?

Coming back to her senses, Hela felt that something seemed wrong with her thoughts.

"Meow~"

The well-behaved Energy Devouring Beast sat atop the central console, tilting its adorable little head in confusion at the constantly shifting images and data on the screen.

It stretched out a tiny paw and tried to press it, smacking the screen with loud thumps.

"Woz, has the data collection been completed?"

Ignoring Hela’s "mockery," Beckett turned his gaze toward Woz’s display.

Every aspect of the Super Saiyan Three state was displayed clearly on the screen. Those terrifying quantified values not only surprised Beckett himself, but also left Hela wide-eyed with her scalp tingling.

"Congratulations, Your Highness Beckett!"

"This powerful strength—"

The Other, his loyal subordinate, was about to begin fawning over him again, but Woz’s next words nearly made him choke on his breath.

"After calculation and analysis, Woz believes that Your Highness Beckett’s earlier Super Saiyan Three form did not reach its peak values."

As he spoke, Woz pulled up the data from when Beckett had first used the Mind Stone on U40 Planet to enter the Super One state, as well as the data from when he had independently transformed into Super One on Svartalfheim and beaten the Dark Elf king Malekith head-on.

There was an obvious gap between the two.